


A Beginning

by nbarker1990



Category: The Voice (US) RPF
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-03
Updated: 2016-07-03
Packaged: 2018-07-19 20:23:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7376110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nbarker1990/pseuds/nbarker1990
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You’d imagined the end a dozen times, maybe more.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Beginning

You’d imagined the end a dozen times, maybe more (definitely more). You’d be brave, bold, call him out on his bullshit and lies and whoring, and kick him right out without even blinking an eye. Ultimately, though, it’s a whimper of a final chapter. You’re too exhausted to fight and too unsurprised to make a scene. When you tell him you don’t need some time, that this is IT, he tries to kiss the finality away. His lips are all you really know after twenty long years together and so, knowing this is the last time, you let yourself taste him, press your mouth back against his with an eagerness that has you hating yourself afterwards. 

Gavin’s back the next morning, flowers in hand for you and bagels for the older boys. He moves into the guest room and life goes on. Your marriage is over, the kids are acting up (and you’re pretty sure Kingston knows what the cause of the weird atmosphere in the house is), and you can’t even successfully separate from your husband. Failure isn’t even enough of a word to describe it, you tell Jen one morning over tea, and she just smiles sadly. Everyone had expected this, knew it would happen eventually, apparently. 

You start to tell more people that you’ll be getting a divorce and every pitying expression makes you want to scream, to ask them why the fuck they hadn’t WARNED you earlier, preferably before you even got into bed with the man. 

 

By the time you’re due to rejoin the boys on The Voice, you’re not sure where you stand anymore or even if you’re standing at all. You know divorce lawyers by name now and that’s something you once would’ve laughed hysterically at. It’s not funny now, though, and you want to curl up in the foetal position and cry whenever one of them tells you that ‘it’s better this way’. Because no, it’s fucking not. You want your family back and now that Gavin’s got his own house, you’re spending days at a time away from the boys and it’s unimaginable torture. He’s the one that screwed your life up and he seems happier than ever; all the while, you’re thinking about how long it would take to drown in your own bathtub. 

 

They all greet you with a hug the first day of production meetings, Blake’s slightly longer because that’s just the way he’s been since the day you met him. By the end of three hours, you’re emotionally numb and sitting in the corner of the room staring out the window. Adam keeps shooting you worried looks, Pharrell asks you on four separate occasions if you’re okay, but only Blake seems to know what you need. He takes your hand in his own (it’s large and rough and his fingers fit yours better than you’d expected - not that you’d ever expected to hold his hand) and steers you to another room. 

“It’s quieter in here,” he says when you’re both seated at the table and you try to tug your hand away because no, he doesn’t get it after all. You don’t _want_ quiet. “So we can talk. Even about nothing if you want.”

And thank god. You think what you’re feeling is relief, is the ability to breathe. The meeting had been unlike any other you’d sat though before, interrupted midway by two announcements of the exact same nature. Miranda had been on set once or twice last season and you remember her being perfectly nice, although you’d found it odd how warm she’d been with you and how cold she’d been with her husband. He deserves warmth, Blake does, warmth and affection and laughs. It's painful seeing him now, knowing what you do, noticing the changes in his face and his demeanour. He's almost absent from himself and it's disconcerting, wanting the other him back. Selfish, too, probably. 

 

“Did you want to talk about it?” he asks, his voice a low drawl, his forehead furrowed and his fingers - you suddenly notice - stroking small circles on yours. 

“It’s pretty much what I said earlier,” you sigh. “He cheated. I said that was enough. It’s over.”

“How long?”

“Did he cheat for?” You laugh because that’s a great joke, that one. You’re used to everyone knowing but just not acknowledging the awful truth. “Oh, not long, really. Let’s see.” You count the years off on your fingers, shooting Blake a wry grin. “Twenty years.”

The poor man looks confused at that and yeah, it’s fucked up, cowboy. It’s not like you don’t know that.

“The first time I found out, I caught them in his dressing room, his dick buried in some young groupie who was wearing a No Doubt shirt. That was fun. He apologized, of course, and I took him back. We established a pattern early on, I guess.”

You don’t want him to ask the inevitable (Well, why didn’t you LEAVE then?), and you want to throw your arms around him and thank him when you realize he’s not going to. Instead, he pushes his chair closer to yours, grumbling when the legs bump into each other and stop any progress being made. He stands up, shoves the chair away, and walks over to the wall, sitting on the floor and patting the space next to him.

 

You go.

 

His hugs are a known quantity but this embrace isn’t. You settle between his legs and lean back against his chest. It’s uncomfortably intimate, sitting like this on the floor, his arms wrapped around you and his nose almost tucked into the back of your neck. You’d become friends of a sort last year, you think, but this isn’t friendship as you know it and it’s definitely not Blake as you know him. 

“Blake?”

“Mmmm,” he acknowledges, the vibrations from his voice sending a nice buzz along your skin. “Want to go back yet? I didn’t mean to keep ya or anythin’.”

“Can we leave?” you ask. He doesn’t question you, query what exactly you _mean_ by that, and it makes you want to explain yourself. Just in case he’s moved past the grieving onto the finding someone new. Because that someone is so not going to be you. The idea of moving on, of there being anybody else in your bed apart from your husband (or kids), is still enough to make you want to retch. 

“Sure thing. I’ll grab your stuff from the other room and meet you somewhere? I can get my driver to take you home if you’re not up to it.” He moves then, extricates himself from your body and kneels in front of you, his hand under your chin so you’re forced to look into his eyes. 

They’re so blue.

“Whatever you need, okay.”

 

You cry then, collapse onto him, knocking him back so that he lets out a small huff of surprised laughter. He doesn’t freak out, though, doesn’t push you away or try to hush you out of embarrassment. His arms are tight around you and you wonder if he has the ability to make everyone feel safe. 

After ten minutes of sniffling and sobbing and ruining his shirt with your snot and tears, you start to apologize. He won’t let you, tells you that you have every right to be furious and depressed and resentful and that it’s okay to miss how things were. You wonder if anyone has told him the same thing.

 

You leave the building together, and when you arrive at your home, you find yourself wanting to invite him in. You don’t.

He kisses your cheek, and maybe you’re imagining things, but you think he may have lingered a little, think that you hear a sharp intake of breath when you kiss his cheek too. 

That night, the house is so quiet and your mind is so unsettled that you replay your strange afternoon over and over again. And when, as you’re drifting off to sleep, you find yourself thinking about how soft his lips felt on your skin, you smile. 

 

You’d never imagined a beginning. 


End file.
